Alexandre Vidal Porto: Sergio Y.

Over Friday dinner, Father Siaudizionis exercised his role as envoy for the groom in a sober and considered way.

“It is a new life that you are going to have,” he said.

Adriana listened carefully and reacted cautiously. She said nothing. She showed no excitement. She also did not react with disgust or repudiation. After relaying the offer, the priest asked that she speak to her parents and only give her answer when she was sure.

That night, before falling asleep in the bedroom they shared, Carlotta asked her sister if she would accept Franciskus Zebrowskas’s marriage proposal. She did not get an answer.

The name sounded familiar, but Adriana had only faint memories of Franciskus’s time apprenticing with her father. She remembered him, but not his face. However, because she was devout, she believed what the priest had told her over dinner: “Adriana, my daughter, I know that you and your husband — if Franciskus is the one the Almighty has reserved for you — will be very happy. Happiness awaits you in America.”

Father Siaudizionis’s words about finding happiness in America deeply impressed Adriana. That same night, in bed, before going to sleep, she already knew what she wanted to do, even though she had not yet formally made her decision.

Her analysis was clinical and rational. Her basic premise was that she was already doomed to live an unhappy life. She had an inner conviction that her life in Gekodiche, doing what she was doing, being who she was, meant unhappiness was inevitable. So much so that she had already resigned herself to spending the rest of her days serving others: first her family, and then, after they were gone, God.

She had never wanted a husband. She had never even dreamed of living in America. Never had she conceived of a life different from the one she had, a life full of misery, which she had tried lessening by helping her father, by helping organize church festivals, by reading the books that fell into her hands, while she waited for time to pass.

Suddenly, the opportunity to exchange a damaged life for another one full of possibilities emerged as a concrete fact. The marriage to Zebrowskas represented a kind of unexpected reprieve, one which held out the promise of a life happier than the one to which she had thought she was condemned.

Even if everything were to go wrong in America, and even if she were to continue to be as unhappy as ever, there would be no harm done. Adriana had nothing to lose. Franciskus’s proposal gave her something that, deep down, she desired, but had always renounced as impractical.

On Sunday, after Mass, she waited for the priest to inform him of her decision to marry Franciskus Zebrowskas. When she retuned home she spoke to Carlota, who conveyed the news to their parents.

Franciskus Zebrowskas sent Adriana Simkevicius a second-class ticket on the SS Kursk, which would leave the port of Libau for New York on June 19, 1912. Pinkas Simkevicius closed his shop for three days so that he, his wife and his eldest daughter could travel to Vilnius to say goodbye to Adriana, who from there would travel alone, taking two bags of clothes and a chest containing her wedding trousseau, to her new life.

In Libau, on the eve of her voyage, she slept in a hostel for girls run by Catholic nuns. That night, around dinnertime, she met a seamstress from Vilnius, Helena Viriaudis, who was traveling to New York to work at her uncle’s garment factory.

Given the circumstances, Adriana Simkevicius and Helena Viriaudis needed to become friends. The following morning they boarded the SS Kursk. During the eighteen days they spent at sea, they shared the same bunk bed and imagined, together, but each in her own way, what their new lives in America would be like.

Helena was optimistic and spoke often of the money she would make working with her uncle. She would work hard, but she would earn much more than she would be able to make in Lithuania. Adriana, who never had a penchant for optimism, was afraid that she had traded in an unhappiness she knew for another one she did not, but by then, already on board the ship, there was little she could do about it.

She had no desire to marry. She would do so because it was expected of her. Her mother had given her the necessary instructions and she would fulfill her duties as a wife with her husband. She might even get pregnant, but it was not what she wanted. She would accept Franciskus’s marriage proposal as a hedge against the ambitious bet she was making.

On the day she reached land, Franciskus Zebrowskas was there waiting at the port with a bouquet of white flowers. It was summer. He wore a beige linen suit; she had on a thin light blue wool dress, too hot for that time of year, which she herself had sewn for the occasion.

It took her over four hours to be processed at Ellis Island. Franciskus signed the papers for her to be admitted into the United States. A justice of the peace married them right then and there. Helena Viriaudis served as a witness. Adriana Simkevicius changed her name for the first time.

It was the first of many changes America would bring.

Adriana Zebrowskas stepped ashore, her legs trembling from so many days at sea. When they arrived in Manhattan, they took a carriage straight to Penn Station where they boarded the train for Chicago.

Frank — as Franciskus was now known — was tall and fair-haired. He made a point of helping Adriana out of the carriage, and during the entire trip he showed concern for her comfort. Frank was attentive to her needs, and this captivated her. He was affectionate, but never to the point of taking liberties.

His small tailor shop occupied the ground floor of a building on Milwaukee Avenue. They would live above the shop, in a small apartment: a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a small sink. The shop on the ground floor had the same layout as the upper floor.

Adriana knew no one in Chicago. She conversed with the Russian grocer, a woman, and thought it strange that the German butcher called her “lady,” which she did not think appropriate. She was never rude, but she wanted to avoid any unnecessary familiarity. At night, she would study English at the Salvation Army school with Frank, and she would correspond with Helena Viriaudis, who wrote once every three weeks or so.

Her days were spent in solitude, working at the sewing machine, but that did not bother her. She helped her husband care for the shop. She would keep house, and on Sundays she would attend Mass.

Frank would cut the larger patterns and take care of all business outside the shop. There was still no appropriate place to receive customers. Frank visited them, took measurements, made deliveries and bought supplies and whatever else was needed.

Adriana, for her part, was responsible for the sewing, packaging and finishing. She had learned from her father to take pride in her work. She liked to think that any piece sewn by her hands could be appraised by anyone, no matter how demanding.

In Chicago, the fabrics were more beautiful and of greater variety than those in Lithuania, and she had plenty of work to keep her busy. Feelings of sadness continued to plague her, although the excess work numbed her somewhat. She put the sadness down to missing her parents and sister, and to her own depressive nature. She was resigned to her fate. Now she would devote herself to her husband. If their business prospered, who knows? They might even manage to bring her family from Gekodiche to the United States.

With Frank she led a balanced life. They shared the bedroom just like they had shared Simkevicius’s shop: imperceptibly. They slept in separate beds and were only together as husband and wife on two occasions. She thought that maybe that was why she never got pregnant.

However, it was in Chicago, childless and far away from her parents, that Adriana realized that she could find happiness in her new life. It was there, in front of the two sheets of mirrors that lined the walls of the shop where she spent her days, where for the first time she saw an image of happiness.